Question

Fill in the blank with the most appropriate word.
“They say he robbed the bank.” Means: _____.
(a)They say he’s been robbed in the bank.
(b)He is said to rob the bank.
(c)He said he’d robbed the bank.
(d)He is said to have robbed the bank.

Answer 1

Hint: We use the present perfect tense to indicate an action that took place in an indefinite time before now. The present perfect tense forms a link between the past and the present.

Complete answer:
As given in the hint, the present perfect tense highlights the result more than the action.
Now, let’s examine the given options-
(a)‘They say he’s been robbed in the bank’ is an incorrect option because it completely changes the context and the meaning of the sentence.
(b)‘He is said to rob the bank’ is an incorrect option because it indicates that Y will rob the bank sometime soon.
(c)‘He said he’d robbed the bank’ is an incorrect option because we need to use the pronoun ‘they’ with the reporting verb.
(d)‘He is said to have robbed the bank’ is the correct option because it indicates the desired meaning.
In the given question- We can conclude that Y is said to have robbed the bank. Here, we have used the present perfect tense to denote an action that was performed by Y in the past.

Note: The structure of the present perfect tense is; Subject + has/have + 3rd form of the \verb/past participle + object. For example- She has eaten her lunch. Here, we can understand that X ate her lunch in an unspecified time before now.